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Raimon Panikkar

Religion, Philosophy and Culture

 
Summary

Religion, philosophy and culture are three "elements" of the human reality. If the first could be compared to the feet with which Man journeys towards his destiny, philosophy could represent the eyes that scrutinize that journey, and culture, the earth on which Man is walking during his concrete pilgrimage. Interculturality represents the relativity (not the relativism) of everything human, and therefore of these three notions.
The question of the nature of philosophy is already a philosophical question, and intimately connected with what Religion stands for. An intercultural approach shows that one cannot separate Philosophy from Religion, and that both are dependent on the culture which nurtures them. In order to do justice to the problem, we need to introduce the function of
mythos, which complements that of logos.  1 


Content

español  

Introduction
I. Philosophy
  1. What are we talking about?
  2. Homeomorphic equivalents
  3. What it is that we are talking about
II. Culture
  4. The encompassing myth
  5. Nature and culture
  6. Interculturality
III. Problems
  7. The transformative function of philosophy
  8. Interculturalization
  9. Mythos and logos



 Introduction

»Philosophy is but the conscious and critical accompaniment of Man's journeying towards his destiny. This journeying is called religion in many cultures.«

1

  Philosophy is but the conscious and critical accompaniment of Man's journeying towards his destiny. This journeying is called religion in many cultures.

2

  The following considerations, intending to put or discover a certain order in the world of religio-cultural galaxies, will serve as prolegomena to the unavoidable problem, today more than ever, of the meeting of religions.

3

  Intercultural philosophy situates itself in terra nullius (no man's land), in a virgin place that no one has yet occupied; otherwise, it would no longer be intercultural but would belong to a determined culture. Interculturality is no one's land, it is utopia, situated between two (or more) cultures. It must keep silent. Now today, since it is coming to vogue, and because historical archetypes repeat themselves, I fear that we are finding ourselves, like Moses face to face with a "promised land", but without anyone having promised it to us: maybe because it does not exist – except as an utopia.  2 

4

  When Aaron enters it, that land ceases already to be "promised" and he appropriates it as a Hebrew land, which must "expel" its original inhabitants. When Christianity and later modern science have entered these foreign lands they equally believed that these were promised lands they believed that their duty was to "expel" the ancient errors and convert the "Natives". It is not customary for philosophy to go out and conquer or convert, but it has often been the one that has justified such intercultural skirmishes.

»Interculturality is no one's land, it is utopia, situated between two (or more) cultures.«

5

  This somewhat polemical introduction would like to put us on our guard against the risk that the growing movement towards intercultural studies be nothing but the symptom of a culture, which, because it is in crisis, seeks to expand its "market," as does the capitalistic system with its investments in the "Third World".

6

  Interculturality is problematic. The very moment that I open my mouth to speak, I am obliged to use a concrete language, and thus I am completely in a particular culture: I am on a land which already belongs to someone. I am in my culture. cultivating my land, speaking my language. And if I must, moreover, be understood by my readers, I must necessarily enter a land which is common to all. While we have, in a certain sense, conquered space, since there are readers on all continents, we have been unable to dominate time, since we are necessarily contemporary. While assuming the past and taking into consideration the possible futures, we communicate in the present and cannot escape the myth of contemporaneity, no matter how polydimensional it may be. We are obliged to representation.

7

  What therefore is the territory that belongs to a problematic intercultural philosophy? My answer would be simple if we were not dealing with philosophy. It would then be sufficient to say that it is a territory acknowledged as common, for example that of music, and then approaching it according to the distinct perspectives of our respective cultures. But this is not valid in the case of that human activity which claims to leave thematically no territory outside of its critical reflection.

8

  It follows that we are thematically obliged to question the very nature of our question about philosophy and about the very soil where what we call "philosophy" has flourished.

9

  In the following text, after having put forward three reflections on the issue of philosophy, followed by three considerations on what is culture, we shall then dedicate three chapters to our specific problematic.  3 



 I. Philosophy

 

10

  We have already insinuated that we initially and provisionally understand by philosophy, that human activity which asks questions about the very foundations of human life under the heavens and on earth.



 1. What are we talking about?

»The question about philosophy is already philosophical and, thus, already belongs itself to philosophy. To which philosophy? Obviously, to all philosophy.«

11

  Let us repeat: the question about philosophy is already philosophical and, thus, already belongs itself to philosophy.

12

  To which philosophy? Obviously, to all philosophy, as we have just said. But the answer to be given to the question: what is that philosophy, is no longer a common one, since we shall give one answer or another according to the particular conception that we have of philosophy. Now, this conception depends on the culture within which we elaborate an answer. We are dealing here, not with what is called a hermeneutical but a prior philosophical circle. We cannot ask the question what is philosophy except within a specific philosophy, even if, in most cases, that philosophy is not explicit.

13

  The answers are varied. We know many of them: we ask about Being, about Reality, about the nature of the question itself, about what saves us, makes us aware, critical, free, happy, gives a meaning to our life, allows us to act, etc.

14

  What is it about? It is about knowing what different cultures have understood by philosophy.

15

  The "histories of philosophy" have much to say about that question. But what is the question asked by these philosophies? Obviously, they relate the "history" of the different conceptions of "philosophy". Within cultures where philosophy has a certain validity or importance, no major problem arises. But once again, what are we talking about when the word does not exist? How are we going to translate it, and what criterion do we have, in order to know that our translation is correct?

16

  This brings us to an unavoidable methodological issue.



 2. Homeomorphic equivalents

»It is on the basis of that one culture and with instruments of that same culture that we have approached those foreign lands, those foreign cultures.«

17

  The majority of studies on this theme have been more or less monocultural. This is due to the global predominance of Western culture during the last 500 years, and to the concrete fact that an Hellenic word has been used to formulate the question. The question: what is philosophy, was asked on the basis of what the Greeks originally understood that word to mean. It is on the basis of that one culture and with instruments of that same culture that we have approached those foreign lands, those foreign cultures.

18

  This is all the more meaningful since the majority of learned people from other cultures have hastened to show us that what we call by that name also existed in their respective cultures. Thus we have important studies on Indic, Chinese, Bantu, Japanese and other, philosophy, as being so many branches that enrich the known studies on Ancient, Medieval, German, Spanish ... philosophy.

»Homeomorphic equivalents are not mere literal translations, any more than they merely translate the role that the original word claims to play, but they play a function which is equivalent or comparable to that supposedly played by philosophy.«

19

  These experts usually tell us that their respective philosophies are oftentimes more rich in certain aspects that have been neglected by Western philosophy, and that they help us to broaden and deepen the very conception of philosophy. But it is rare that they have asked themselves in a critical and thematic way, what question they were asking when asking the question of philosophy. We know today, for example. that there are idealists in India, materialists in China, mystics in Japan, a more sensuous and concrete philosophy in Africa. etc. The majority of those who cultivate (or engage in) philosophy have started from the Western model and have made known to us that what is called philosophy in the West. has existed and still exists in other cultures. But the Greek concept of philosophy, with all its variation and reforms, continues to be the paradigm according to which one proceeds to research what is philosophy in other cultures.

20

  When translating the word, one seeks equivalents to the concept of philosophy, equivalents conditioned by the original Greek model: even if the notion has somewhat evolved subsequently.

21

  I have introduced, a few years ago, the notion of homeomorphic equivalents, as a first step towards interculturality. One should, in our case, research both the eventual equivalent notions to philosophy in other cultures, and the symbols (not necessarily the concepts and even less a unique concept) that express the homeomorphic equivalents of philosophy. Homeomorphic equivalents are not mere literal translations, any more than they merely translate the role that the original word claims to play (in this case: philosophy), but they play a function which is equivalent (analogous) or comparable to that supposedly played by philosophy. It is therefore not a conceptual but a functional equivalent, i.e. an analogy of the third degree. One does not seek the same function (as that exercised by philosophy) but the function that is equivalent to that exercised by the original notion in the corresponding cosmovision.

22

  Let us consider a few examples that may help us. "Brahman" is not a translation for "God", since the concepts do not correspond (their attributes not being the same), and since the functions are not identical (brahman not having to be creator, providence, personal, as God is). Each one of these two words express a functional equivalence within the corresponding two cosmovisions.

23

  There is more. In that example, the correlation is almost biunivocal (one word homeomorphically corresponding to the other); but it could not be. We can for example translate "religion" by dharma without necessarily translating dharma by "religion." Dharma equally means duty, ethics, element, observance, energy, order, virtue, law, justice, and has been even translated by reality. But the word "religion" can also mean sampradâya, karma, jati, bhakti, marga, pûja, daivakarma, nimayaparam, punyasila ... Each culture is a world.

24

  If by philosophy, one then understands the intellectual activity which clarifies the use of our concepts or which purifies our language, we shall not seek what plays that role in the other culture. but what accomplishes the function equivalent to that which the clarification of concepts and words plays in the first conception that we have talked about.

»We cannot claim to define through one single word what intercultural philosophy is, nor even presuppose that such a philosophy exists.«

25

  There are at least 33 notions in classical Sanskrit which could he homeomorphically compared to the equivalent function of philosophy.  4 

26

  One can therefore discuss the issue of whether this activity of the human mind should be called philosophy. We believe that it is appropriate if we do not wish to condemn ourselves to a cultural Solipsism: but we must not forget that the relationship must be established in both directions, moving for example from the Greek equivalents to those of the other culture, and from the latter to the Hellenic ones.

27

  We cannot claim to define through one single word what intercultural philosophy is, nor even presuppose that such a philosophy exists. What is possible however is to inquire about the many homeomorphic equivalents, and, from within the other culture, to try to formulate what can correspond to what we are trying to say when we say the word philosophy.

28

  We must seek a middle way between the colonial mentality which believes that we can express the totality of the human experience through the notions of a single culture, and the opposite extreme which thinks that there is no communication possible between diverse cultures, and which should then condemn themselves to a cultural apartheid in order to preserve their identity. I am thinking of the case of Bhutan as a political example. Our problem is not merely a "speculative" one.

29

  Without claiming in the least to say something which is universally valid. let me venture, as I journey through this middle way, to sketch an answer to the problematic that we have set forth.



 3. What it is that we are talking about

»What we could call intercultural philosophy would be a new genus of philosophy, an enriching of the term beyond its cultural limits.«

30

  Given the contingent fact that today's Western languages are somewhat intercultural vehicles, we could adopt the Hellenic word philosophy as a symbol of something, which, up till now, had no reason to be present in the meaning of what was called philosophy originally and that is still called philosophy.

31

  What we could call intercultural philosophy would then not be a new species of philosophy, alongside the classifications offered to us by the histories of philosophy, but it would be a new genus of philosophy, an enriching of the term beyond its cultural limits.

32

  Just as – as we shall see – the great cultures of mankind are not real species of a real genus, but each one of them is rather a genus (with subcultures as species), so the intercultural notion of philosophy would represent a distinct superior genus (which we could perhaps continue to call philosophy) and not another species of a unique genus.

»Philosophy could he understood as the activity by which Man participates consciously and in a more or less critical manner, in the discovery of reality and orients himself within the latter.«

33

  This kind of supergenus, of a purely formal character and valid only within a specific moment of time and space, would be a transcendental, and not a categorial relation with what, until now, has been called philosophy. This philosophy would be a formal transcendental and not a category. In this sense, intercultural philosophy does not exist as does an idealistic philosophy (one which presents certain common traits), or a Catalan philosophy (without content that is necessarily common, but cultivated by the Catalans or in the Catalan language). An intercultural philosophy exists only as transcendental to the different human activities which correspond homeomorphically to what, in a certain culture, we call philosophy.

34

  As I try to follow this middle way which avoids solipsism without falling into colonialism, I shall try to describe in a very provisional manner, as follows, the philosophical activity that would have a certain intercultural validity:

35

  Philosophy could he understood as the activity by which Man participates consciously and in a more or less critical manner, in the discovery of reality and orients himself within the latter.

36

  By saying activity, we wish to surmount the reductionism that is represented by a certain conception of philosophy as being something purely theoretical. An intercultural philosophy cannot eliminate the dimension of praxis, understood not only in a platonic and/or Marxist sense, but also eminently existential, to use another polysemic word. The word "activity" also indicates that it is a matter of acting, of a human agere, which need not therefore be limited to a mere mental or rational operation.

37

  By using the word Man, we refer to the philosophical activity which is specific to the human being. Neither angels nor animals philosophize. Philosophy is an activity, belonging to Man as such. Philosophy would be that primordially and specifically human activity.

38

  The notion of participation in our description claims to indicate the passive aspect of philosophical activity.

39

  Life, as well as the reality in which we live, has been given to us and we find ourselves immersed in it. We are, as we participate in it, something anterior and superior to ourselves, both individually and collectively. Philosophical activity is an activity of acknowledgement before being one of pure knowledge.

40

  By qualifying philosophical activity as conscious, we wish to indicate that consciousness embraces an activity and a reality which is much broader than reason, not only because Spanish and French words include very wisely moral conscience, i.e. the knowledge of good and evil, but also because while it includes rationality and intelligibility, it does not limit itself to the latter. We are aware that there is something that we do not understand, we are aware that both Nothingness and Being, even if they are unintelligible, can be real. There exists a thinking which is non discursive, non deductive, an imaginal, iconic awareness, a non reflexive intuition, etc. And experience shows us that many cultures have cultivated these types of consciousness which are not included in rationality – without necessarily falling into irrationality, the latter being incompatible with philosophical activity, thus abandoning the realm of the human strictly speaking.  5 

»Practically all philosophies have known that truth has a seductive appearance; it simultaneously reveals and hides itself.«

41

  We add the word critical because we seek to underline both the intellectual dimension of philosophical activity and its questioning character. Every man could potentially be a philosopher, but the word "critical" suggests that the first innocence has been lost, and that, in the vision of reality held by any man, the philosopher asks the why of what is given to him. The word "critical" comprises also reflection, skepsis and introspection. Human consciousness is constitutively consciousness: it is a gnosis which knows that we are not alone (ni estamos ni somos solos). We have added degrees to critical consciousness, for even if a minimum of self-consciousness seems to belong to all philosophy, it is not necessary to accept a Kantian type of "critique" as being essential to the notion of philosophy.

42

  No matter what, with a more or less critical consciousness, philosophy is a discovery of what is and of what we are. Not only is reality disclosed to us by itself, but we also discover it in virtue of our active participation in the dynamism of reality itself of which we are a part. There is no point in saying that this discovery or revelation takes place within some limited parameters that make us who we are and of which we are aware. Philosophical activity is as much a discovery of reality as that of what we are. It is a partial, hypothetical, doubtful, imperfect, contingent discovery but a revelation in the last analysis. A revelation which, because it is one, continues to be so; i.e. an unveiling which never ceases, not only because of a possible infinitude of reality, but because of our own finitude, which results in that every discovery is at the same time a covering over. Practically all philosophies have known that truth has a seductive appearance; it simultaneously reveals and hides itself. Not only would absolute truth dazzle us, but it would not enlighten us, for it could not be total if we ourselves were not in it. Or, as we shall insinuate further, all incursion of the light or of the intelligibility of logos within the obscure realm of the mythos is accompanied by another shadow that the logos leaves behind it and which the mythos discreetly covers anew. All demythization is accompanied by a remythization;  6  it is always necessary that something be "pre-sup-posed".

»From the starting point of interculturality, philosophy can be considered as the conscious and more or less critical companion of Man's journey – corresponding in many cultures to what could be translated by religion.«

43

  By reality, we understand all that is, or is thinkable, all that can enter our consciousness, the representation (whether realistic or idealistic), the idam of the Upanishads ... We exclude neither Being nor Nothingness, nor do we limit ourselves to what can be expressed by the verb to be. We use this word as the broader and (maybe) deeper of all – not as all (no theory whatsoever is formulated here), but as an ultimate symbol which would hence encompass also what could dialectically appear as non-real. Let us not forget that the great challenge of interculturality is the relativization of all apriori.

44

  The notion of orientation, finally, wishes to underline the vital aspect, both practical and existential, of philosophy. It is through philosophy that Man gives orientation to his life, forges his destiny and moves towards what he considers his goal (whatever may be its meaning). Philosophical activity would thus be that specifically human activity by which Man realizes as such – what many cultures have called the salvific character of philosophy, or of what it is customary to translate by religion. This orientation may postulate a North or at least a magnet, but it is philosophy, as conscious activity about the meaning of life or of reality, which puts the compass into our hands. And while some extremist positions say that we should do away with the compass, that waying on our own without an (external) compass, would also be the interiorization of a compass which does indicate no other direction but the one that we create or imagine. From the starting point of interculturality, philosophy can be considered as the conscious and more or less critical companion of Man's journey – corresponding in many cultures to what could be translated by religion.

45

  It is obvious that every word used will be differently interpreted by different philosophies. It follows that an intercultural philosophy questions all notions, and each one of the notions of a current in a given culture.

46

  After having taken all these precautions, I believe that one can speak provisionally of intercultural philosophy as being a transcendental relation to what we call philosophy. We have not thereby left our culture, we have not jumped over our own shadow but we have opened ourselves, as much as possible, to the experience of the reality of other cultures, ever ready to dialogue with the latter, as we shall now say.



 II. Culture

 

47

  It is well known that the term "culture" has undergone during the 17th century in Europe, a certain mutation which has crystallized in a modern sense only since a little less than a century ago. It is a term, which remains suspect to some especially the Anglo-Saxons. Before that, culture meant something else.

48

  Cultura anima may be one of the better definitions of philosophy (Cicero: Tusculanae disputationes. II, 13). The word means I cultivate (cura, curatio, cultus), implying honor and veneration. Culture was always culture of something. Hence has it come to mean what we still mean when we speak of a cultivated man. And it is through the intermediary of "civilization" that "culture" has come to take on the meaning that is widespread today.  7 



 4. The encompassing myth

»For the myth gives us the horizon of intelligibility where we must situate any idea, any conviction or any act of consciousness so that they may be held by our mind.«

49

  To the hundreds of definitions of culture that exist today, I shall risk adding one more, which has at least the advantage of being maybe the shortest of them all, and which finally coincides with the majority of accepted descriptions. All the latter say that culture is constituted by rituals, customs, opinions, dominant ideas, ways of life which characterize a certain people at a given period. If language is an essential element, history and geography are equally cultural factors.

50

  We summarize all that in the word myth, understood as symbolizing that which we believe at such a deep level that we are not even aware that we believe it: "it is useless to say it," "it is understood," "it is obvious," "we shall not pursue the investigation any further" ... We question myth only when we already partly stand outside it: this is because it is precisely the myth which offers us the basis from which the question as question makes sense. For the myth gives us the horizon of intelligibility where we must situate any idea, any conviction or any act of consciousness so that they may be held by our mind.

»Each culture is a galaxy which secretes its self-understanding, and with it, the criteria of truth, goodness, and beauty of all human actions.«

51

  Of course, there are particular myths and we must also distinguish between on the one hand, mythologies, mythologoumena, mythemes, and on the other, myth strictly speaking, which is what makes possible a narration of myths, a science about myths, more or less explicit groups of myths and the themes themselves as rational translations of what the myths themselves allow to appear as translatable. All this should not be confused with the myth strictly speaking, that horizon which gives the condition of intelligibility of everything that is subsequently said.

52

  Each culture, in a sense, could be described as the encompassing myth of a collectivity at a certain moment in time and space; it is what renders plausible, credible, the world in which we live, where we are. This accounts for the flexibility and mobility of myth as well as the impossibility of grasping our own myth, except when we hear it from the mouth of others because having accorded the latter a certain credibility or when it has ceased to be a myth for us. Myth and faith are correlative, just as there exists a special dialectic between mythos and logos (as well as between logos and mythos).

53

  Each culture possesses a cosmovision and reveals the world in which we live – in which we believe to be. Each culture is a galaxy which secretes its self-understanding, and with it, the criteria of truth, goodness, and beauty of all human actions.

54

  Cultures are not folklore, as certain mainly political milieux are in the habit of interpreting them, when they speak arrogantly and condescendingly of multicultural tolerance. Cultures are not mere specific forms of a genus called human civilization. Each culture is a genus. Cultures are not abstract species of a single sovereign genus. The sovereign genus, which would be human culture, exists only as an abstraction.

55

  Let us say it more academically: there are no cultural universals, i.e. concrete meaningful contents valid for all the cultures, for mankind throughout all times. What one calls human nature is an abstraction. And every abstraction is an operation of the mind which removes (abstracts) from a greater reality (as seen by this mind) something (less universal) which it considers as important. There cannot be cultural universals, for it is culture itself which makes possible (and plausible) its own universals.

»There are no cultural universals. But there are, for sure, human invariants. But the way according to which each one of the human invariants is lived and experienced in each culture is distinct and distinctive in each case.«



56

  By saying that there are no cultural universals, we are using a way of thinking which is foreign to the modern "scientific" mentality, in which predominates (when not dominates) simple objectivity (and objectibility) of the real. Culture is not simply an object, since we are constitutively immersed in it as subjects. It is the one that makes it possible for us to see the world as objects, since self-consciousness, i.e. subjectivity, essentially belongs to the human being.

57

  It ensues that all classification of cultures is nothing but a formal abstraction with a claim to objectivity to which no real culture can be reduced. Culture is the encompassing myth which makes it possible for us to believe the world in which we live. Every cosmology is the logos of a kosmos which shows itself to us as such, thanks to the mythos which renders it visible to us.

58

  There are no cultural universals. But there are, for sure, human invariants. Every man eats, sleeps, walks, speaks, establishes relationships, thinks ... But the way according to which each one of the human invariants is lived and experienced in each culture is distinct and distinctive in each case.

59

  It is undeniable that at certain given moments of mankind, there are myths that acquire a greater universality than others, but even in such cases, the way we usually interpret them, is distinct. "You shall not kill" can be the formulation of an abstract universal myth that we all interpret today as the condemnation of cannibalism: however, the real belief in an absolute "thou shall not kill" is far from being universal. Let us not forget that a myth is constitutively inobjectifiable and that it is myth (in the sense in which we use this word) only for those who believe in it. As for the others, these are myths only in a condescending and pejorative sense of the word, as used in the modern colonial era. We see the myths of others as more or less legendary mythologies – we do not see the beam in our own eye.

»Cultural respect requires that we respect those ways of life that we disapprove, or even those that we consider as pernicious.«

60

  It is very revealing to inquire whence and why a "mythology" was born (not the narrative, mythos-legein) as a rational science about others' myths (legends). All those who do not come from the South or the Center of England speak English with an accent: only the "natives", of course, speak without an accent ... Everything which did not fit into the mental framework of what is called the Enlightenment, which flourished precisely when the West had politically "conquered" more than three quarters of the planet, has been called primitive myth, and still nowadays, "on the way to development".

61

  Cultural respect requires that we respect those ways of life that we disapprove, or even those that we consider as pernicious. We may be obliged to go as far as to combat these cultures, but we cannot elevate our own to the rank of universal paradigm in order to judge the other ones.

62

  This is the great challenge of pluralism and one of the cements of interculturality.



 5. Nature y culture

»Man is a cultural animal. Culture is not extrinsic to him, but natural. Man is a being that is naturally cultural – or culturally natural.«

63

  We can pursue with a double assertion:

64

  a. Culture is the field that makes it possible for us to cultivate the world that it itself presents to us, so that Man may become fully human and achieve his fullness.

65

  b. Culture is the specific form of human nature. The nature of Man is cultural. Culture is not an additive to Man, it is not something artificial. Man is a cultural animal. Culture is not extrinsic to him, but natural. Man is a being that is naturally cultural – or culturally natural. The ultimate criterion for condemning another culture will therefore consist in showing that it is anti-natural – although the very idea of nature is already culture-specific.

66

  One could critique western civilization by saying that it is the culture which has championed a dichotomy between the natural nature and cultural nature of man, so that it has separated religion (a cultural fact), from what is natural, thus converting it either into something that is supernatural, or into an ideology (comparable to a mere doctrinal superstructure). By thus separating culture from nature, it has constructed a culture which is artificial in the pejorative sense (although it is said to be scientific). According to the Chinese proverb, one cannot stay too long on the tip of one's toes. It seems to me that it is a key for understanding Western culture.

67

  Yet the Western experience is fertile. We cannot separate nature from culture, but neither should we say that they are simply the same. The problem in the West has been acute ever since the Greeks. The physei, what corresponds to physis, to nature, is not identically the same as nomôi, as what pertains to nomos, to the norm. To separate them or to make them into something identical would lead to the destruction of the humanum. Their relation is non-dualistic, advaita. Culture is neither a mere accident of Man, nor is it his substance: it is not identical to human nature. There can be antinatural cultures.

68

  Much water has flowed under the bridges since the Greeks. Maybe the following considerations could be of some help here.

»The concept has been identified with the intelligibility of a thing: it follows that if philosophy wants to know what things are, it must necessarily operate with concepts. The concept has thus become the unique instrument of philosophy.«

69

  While in the world of nature, there are things, in the world of culture, there are objects. Here either, it certainly is not possible to separate them. Everything that man touches, no matter how natural he believes it to be, is always at the same time cultural. So-called natural things never cease to be representations of human consciousness. But natural things are distinct from artificial ones, especially from "ideas", "representations", "idols", "images" ..., which do not claim to be in the world of nature, but to be real in the human world of culture. These realities we call objects, since they are undoubtedly projections, ob-jecta of our mind, objects of thinking. Justice, for example, is not a thing: being a cultural reality, it is an object of human thinking.

70

  For animals also and maybe also for sentient awareness, there are things. But for man, there are also objects, and he thinks objects as such. That is why he can thus meditate upon them, experiment with them and manipulate them.

71

  We must here take up a theme which is unavoidable when speaking of an intercultural philosophy. An object is a representation of human consciousness. From that perspective, natural things, as we call them, are also objects. But it is the human mind itself which distinguishes between the objects that exist in nature and those that belong to the world of culture. A horse does not belong to the same order of reality as does justice, but one cannot say that an African mask, in its ritual reality, is simply natural, nor exclusively cultural. The whole Sacramental view of the universe, whether Hindu, Christian, Bantu ... presupposes this non-dual relationship between the natural and the cultural.

72

  Objects of thinking are cultural invariants. Every man thinks, and to think is to think something. This something is the objectum of thinking, what the activity of the mind projects, throws in front of itself in virtue of the stimulation it has received.

73

  The concept, however, is not such an invariant. The concept is a universal in the most technical meaning of the term, it is an abstraction of the mind which grasps or claims to grasp the "quiddity" of a thing, called essence, substance, representation, idea, or as one wishes. The same word has been used with many meanings. But the concept is not a cultural universal. And this is what we wish to underline: not all cultures operate with concepts.

»There are numerous classes of intelligibility, many ways of being aware of reality and of participating in it. That is the intercultural challenge.«

74

  The concept, which is maybe the genial "invention" of Socrates (or of the Platonic Socrates), in spite of the protests of Isocrates at that time, has become the best instrument of Western philosophy. For Hegel, concept is the mediator par excellence between being and becoming, and not only an instrument, but, so to speak, the soul of the things themselves.

75

  The concept has been identified with the intelligibility of a thing: it follows that if philosophy wants to know what things are, it must necessarily operate with concepts. The concept has thus become the unique instrument of philosophy.

76

  There are, however, homeomorphic equivalents to philosophy, which do not operate with concepts. I am not referring only to what the 19th-century colonial mentality has called prelogical or preconceptual thinking, but equally to systems of thought as elaborate as a good portion of Indic philosophy.  8  There is, for example, a philosophical activity of Man which operates with symbols and not with concepts. It does not therefore try to do a conceptual algebra which corresponds to reality, but to present or to make possible intuitions of reality itself. There are numerous classes of intelligibility, many ways of being aware of reality and of participating in it. That is the intercultural challenge.



 6. Interculturality

»Interculturality is the philosophical imperative of our times.«



77

  We have already asserted that interculturality is the philosophical imperative of our times. But we have mentioned a twofold temptation: monoculturalism and multiculturalism.

78

  There is a monoculturalism which is as subtle as it is well-intentioned. It consists in admitting a vast range of cultural diversity, but against the unique backdrop of a common denominator. Our categories have taken root so deeply in the substratum of modem man, that it is difficult for him, for example, to imagine that he could think without concepts or without applying the law of causality. One postulates therefore a universal and hence common reason, and a unique intelligibility: likewise, one finds it difficult to see how we could abstract from our categories of space, time and matter.

»The relativity inherent to interculturality does not question the discoveries of a culture, but neither does it absolutize them. It relativizes them, i.e. it considers them valid and legitimate within a given culture.«



79

  An example, which is powerful in every sense of the word, can be taken from modern science, which claims to be universal, forgetting that its cements themselves have been drawn up from a particular culture. We have already mentioned as monocultural examples the "scientific" ideas of space and time, to which we could add those of matter, energy, and above all the possibility of translating in algebraic terms the phenomena of nature, the docility of the latter towards set and determinating laws. Because of the spectacular feats that it has made possible, modern science, often without willing it, has converted these polysemic symbols already mentioned (time, space, matter ...) into univocal and definable (circumscribed, although not understood) signs.

80

  Whatever may be the case, since we shall not enter now into a global evaluation of modern science and of its underlying epistemology, we only affirm that all these pillars on which modern science rests, are not intercultural: they belong to one culture only. We do not intend to say by this that other forms of thought and their underlying myths are more valid or less valid, nor that they should or should not disappear. We are only stating that we have here a monoculturalism which does not allow the full blossoming of other cultures.

81

  Let us repeat that monoculturalism is not incompatible with tolerance of all those ways of life which accept the encompassing myth of modern culture. In the present situation, the latter could be described as the law of the market, the power of money, the universal value of modern science, the technological complex as the necessary framework of the common life of human beings, and above all, the specific way of thinking and seeing life. To the dominant monoculturalism belong the major portion of what are usually called the definite assets of modern science, such as the fact that it is the earth that rotates around the sun and not vice-versa, the law of entropy or the malaria cycle, modern man is not ready, and rightly so, to accept a cultural relativism which would bring him to doubt about his "scientific progress".

82

  But the cultural relativity of an intercultural discourse has nothing to do with such relativism. The relativity inherent to interculturality does not question the discoveries of a culture, but neither does it absolutize them. It relativizes them, i.e. it considers them valid and legitimate within a given culture and within the parameters admitted by the latter: in a word, within the encompassing myth of that culture. Not to be disposed to relativize the present cosmology when we have relativized all others is equivalent to a fossilization of time and to the very negation of the idea of progress – unless one wishes to domesticate the latter in order to oblige it to a gratuitously postulated linearity or to set the realm in which the "paradigm" could change – a very significant attitude of modern monoculturalism. We have indicated at the beginning that monoculturalism is very rooted in the human mind and difficult to surmount. Here again dawns the challenge of interculturality.



»It is obvious that because of its very power, our civilization can allow itself the luxury of being much more tolerant than weaker cultures.«

83

  Our civilization accepts easily other cultures as long as the latter accept the rules of the game that the former postulates. And it is obvious that because of its very power, our civilization can allow itself the luxury of being much more tolerant than weaker cultures.

84

  What has brought about the theoretical justification of monoculturalism is the practical triumph of evolutionary thinking, which in turn is indebted to the linear conception of time. According to that thinking, mankind follows a linear "progress"; with its meanderings, twists and turns, up to an "omega" point – that some philosophers interpret as the secularization of the eschatological thinking of Abrahamic religions. It is not so much a matter of the hypothesis according to which man has come from the monkey as of the fact of believing that we have evolved within a geography and history which have a double dimension, and that the meaning of human life, of mankind and of the whole cosmos consists in "developing", i.e. evolving towards that "end". Evolution is primarily a form of thinking which believes that it can reach the intelligibility of a phenomenon if it has explained its linear temporal gestation, in other words, if it visualizes the trajectory according to which a given phenomenon has come to be, by riding a time which has brought it all the way up to us. Cosmology is being reduced to a cosmogony: to explain the gestation of something is equivalent or comparable to having understood: it the how has then become equivalent or "equiparable" to the why and has replaced the what – for to control the how it is superfluous to know the what. What is important, because that is what is efficient, is to "know" how things operate.

»We are in a monocultural world: there is no consolation in saying that it is pluricultural. Only one culture sets the rules of the game.«

85

  If such be the case, it is enough to "know" the evolution of man and of cultures in that unique sense. The official language of the United Nations, which speaks of "developed" and "developing" countries is highly revealing. We are in a monocultural world: there is no consolation in saying that it is pluricultural. Only one culture sets the rules of the game.

86

  It is precisely the task of philosophy to reach the ultimate roots of reality and to become aware of this monoculturalism which is invisible from within our own myth. Then, possibly, we may find a window which will allow us to find an exit. We are saying "exit" because it is practically a world consensus that we must exit from this modern civilization which has no future, since it cannot continue to grow and develop indefinitely.

87

  An intercultural philosophy could show us that other civilizations, without denying their negative aspects, have had other myths which allowed them to live a full life – obviously for those who have believed in them; but we must immediately add here, that this is in no way a matter of idealizing the past or of seeing only the bright side of other cultures. And that is what precisely brings us to interculturality.

»In no way are we denying that there can be a transcultural validity of certain formal ways of thinking.«

88

  The other temptation mentioned comes from the extreme opposite, which we have called multiculturalism. We have already said that multiculturalism is impossible. Acknowledging the primordial function of each culture, which consists in offering a vision of reality which allows man to live his life, we could maybe defend an atomised and separated pluriculturalism, i.e. a separate and respectful existence between diverse cultures, each in its own world. We would thus have the existence of a plurality of cultures without mutual connection. But what is obviously impossible is the coexistence of their fundamental diversity in today's world.

89

  One cannot put forward that acknowledging this incompatibility already supposes a supracultural or universal logic. For such an incompatibility can be justified within the respective categories of diverse cultures. For example, for a culture such as the Western one, it appears obvious that there can be no life in common possible with a culture which believes that spirits constantly and freely interfere in human actions, without consideration for what are called physical or psychological laws.

90

  Also from the point of view of other cultures, it is obvious that there is incompatibility, not so much because there is formal contradiction, but because there is a de facto incompatibility. The theoretical justification would then be, for example, not that A is incompatible with B because B is equiparable to Non-A, but because A is simply greater than B and phagocytises B.

91

  In no way are we denying that there can be a transcultural validity of certain formal ways of thinking. Let us not forget that every universality is formal and that formality presupposes certain axioms (precisely formal ones) that are postulated or acknowledged. Thus, for example, the principle of non-contradiction which applies when affirming the incompatibility between A and non-A, presupposes that A remains constant both in time and in my thought, that non-A as negation of non-A corresponds to it-is-not-A, and mostly that my thought of A and of non-A corresponds to the extra-mental reality of A and of non-A, etc. – presuppositions that need not be recognized by all cultures.

»Monoculturalism is lethal and multiculturalism is impossible. Interculturality recognizes both assertions and seeks a middle way.«

92

  Moreover, multiculturalism today is also de facto impossible. The dominant culture has already penetrated foreign territories to such an extent that it would be myopic not to see it. Technocracy, to say it in a word, has practically penetrated the four directions of the earth. We may have to surmount or dominate it, but we cannot ignore its ubiquity. Maybe it is destined to become the unique culture which will replace all others; but this does not mean that it is a super-culture encompassing all others.

93

  In that context, we have, to this point, said two things: that monoculturalism is lethal and multiculturalism is impossible. Interculturality recognizes both assertions and seeks a middle way. Monoculturalism asphyxiates other cultures through oppression. Multiculturalism leads us to war of cultures (with the foreseeable routing of the weakest) or condemns us to a cultural apartheid which also in the long run, becomes stifling.

94

  We have taken the position that cultures are mutually incompatible, but in no way have we said that they are incommunicable. The fact that the circumference and the radius are mutually incommensurable (we could have said it in a more poetic and Platonic way, of the lyre and of the bow), in no way means that they do not condition each other, nor that they can become separate.

»Interculturality is inherent to the human being and a unique culture is as incomprehensible and impossible as a single universal language and as one man alone.«

95

  We could even expand the metaphor and add that, just as there is no circumference without a radius, there is no culture without interculturality, at east implicit. Every circumference has its radius even if the latter is not outlined. No culture can remain static without destroying itself. A culture is nothing but an abstraction if it is not concretely embedded in human beings that cultivate and live it, and thus modify and transform it without following logical laws. A certain discipline called by the modern name of Begriffsgeschichte or History of Ideas has inclined us to believe that, except for certain modifications of paradigm, cultural transformations follow roughly the laws of deduction or of induction – as if they were computers. Human reality does not exhaust itself in history, nor human history in the history of ideas – may Hegel forgive us! One thing is the condition of possibility for a particular cultural stream to emerge, and the necessary plausibility for that stream to find root and to grow, another thing is to limit human freedom, the activity of the mind and the creativity of men to these simple intellectual operations. A man is not a machine, anymore than thinking is mere calculus.

96

  This means that interculturality is inherent to the human being and that a unique culture is as incomprehensible and impossible as a single universal language and as one man alone. All cultures are the result of a continuous mutual fecundation. The dream of the Tower of Babel is the great temptation of the powerful, of the "entrepreneurs" (of works-of all kinds) and of those who inhabit the higher mansions. The human condition is made up of more or less comfortable huts, but within human scale and with practicable pathways (not highways) between them.

»To think that cultures are incommunicable because they are incommensurable is a rationalistic presupposition.«

97

  The example of language is an eloquent one. One only has to live in Australia, in India or in the United States of America, to become aware of the variations and variants of the English language. Suffice it to move across Peru, Bolivia or Mexico to understand that Spanish is an abstraction and that living languages are always dialects – at least the spoken languages –, for example the academic dialect.

98

  To think that cultures are incommunicable because they are incommensurable is a rationalistic presupposition which believes that only a common ratio mensurabilis can be the instrument of human communication. To understand (entenderse) each other does not mean to comprehend each other (comprenderse). Intelligibility is not the same thing as awareness (tener consciencia). One can be aware of something that is unintelligible, as we have said. The fact of having separated wisdom into knowledge (without love), on one hand, and love (without knowledge), on the other hand, has fragmented the human being.

99

  Interculturality is the complete form of human culture. But interculturality means neither one (single) culture, nor a disconnected plurality. Here again, emerges the necessity of surmounting monism without fading into dualism: advaita. Intercultural communication presents a special problematic nature. This will be the aim of our following chapter.



 III. Problems

 

100

  Our topic will be met only partially since we are not trying to elaborate an intercultural philosophy but only to describe from outside this terra nullius (no man's land), by opening windows and doors in an attempt to communicate. For that purpose, we can formulate the following considerations.



 7. The transformative function of philosophy

»Each philosophy emerges from the womb of a culture, and simultaneously by questioning what holds that culture together, can transform it. In fact, every deep cultural change has emerged from philosophical activity.«

101

  The purely formal description of philosophy, as being that human activity which deals in a practical and/or theoretical fashion with the ultimate problems of which man is aware, allows us to assert that it is its mission to overcome the possible (and real) inertia (physical and mostly mental) of man, who, ensconced more or less comfortably in his culture, doesn't try to look beyond his own myth.

102

  Assuredly, each culture offers to philosophy the language that the latter needs to formulate its insights. But it is no less certain that each philosophy tries to question the very foundations on which each culture is based: it is philosophy that investigates the ultimate content of the more or less explicit cosmovision of each culture. We have already indicated that a specific difference of philosophy with respect to other "disciplines" consists in looking back rather than ahead, in questioning what holds a culture together instead of hurrying up to scale a (cultural) edifice in construction. In that sense, philosophy is authentic skepsis, revolutionary, protesting and transforming.

»By trying to be aware of its myth, philosophy opens itself up to interculturality in order to accomplish its task of transmythicization, thus transforming the original culture's vision of reality.«

103

  In other words, each philosophy emerges from the womb of a culture, and simultaneously by questioning what holds that culture together, can transform it. In fact, every deep cultural change has emerged from philosophical activity. It has repeatedly been said that philosophers, although with chronological time lags, are those who influence the most the destinies of history. This radical character of philosophy means that it takes its nourishment from a sub-soil where also other cultures take their roots. By that I mean that the stimulus of philosophical thinking comes from its underground contact with other roots. Or if we were to radically change metaphor, will be transcultural what carries far away seeds and lets then fall into the philosopher's cogitation (without forgetting the irony and humor hidden in that cogitation – a philosophy without humor loses the humus which keeps it vigorous and stops it from wilting into fanaticism). By trying to be aware of its myth, philosophy opens itself up to interculturality in order to accomplish its task of transmythicization, thus transforming the original culture's vision of reality.

104

  This transformation takes place although at velocities that can be very different within both cultures in question. The authentic meeting between cultures does not necessarily take place mid-way, but certainly outside the respective field of either. Otherwise, there would not be meeting but phagocytosis or rejection. I insist on this point because the skirmishes (generally economic and political, even military) of certain cultures in foreign fields are not examples of interculturality but of domination.

105

  Each philosophy is a human effort to move out of its own myth, an attempt to move out of the horizon of one's own world, as represented in miniatures of the late renaissance, which show man piercing the heavens, and glimpsing into an infinite universe which was then starting to dawn before his very eyes. Every philosophy, by approaching the mythos with logos, exercises a demythologizing function, although it otherwise necessarily remythologizes, as I have said. One cannot separate the logos from myth or the myth from logos.

106

  Let us summarize a very complex situation. One receives this incitement to philosophize, as much from the avatars of one's own culture as from the stimuli that come from foreign cultures.



 8. Interculturalization

»Mientras que "multi" y "pluri" indican las aportaciones sectoriales y metodológicamente clausas que varias disciplinas proporcionan al estudio de un tema, "inter" designa que el problema mismo está planteado en términos tales que no puede ser resuelto desde una sola disciplina y que "trans" disciplinariedad apunta a la constitución de un nuevo abordaje que supera los abordajes disciplinares que le dieron origen «

Celina A. Lértora Mendoza:
Enfoque epistemológico de los problemas de interdisciplinariedad
(in this issue)

107

  The contemporary effervescence within the dominating culture has sparked a series of efforts to try to move out of this culture's apparent dead-end.

108

  The present culture, preoccupied by the growing specialization of knowledge, has begun to cultivate, especially among academics, what has been called pluri-disciplinarity. The latter consists in approaching a problem belonging to a given discipline with the help of the methods of other disciplines, although the problem continues to belong to the original discipline. It is as if one were calling upon mates to jump aboard one's ship and help one avoid shipwreck.

109

  Another effort consists in a methodological transfer, i.e. in applying the method belonging to one discipline to another discipline. This has been called interdiscplinarity. Here one does not ask others to come and help us, but we go over to their ship or, at least, we want to navigate together. Obviously, for a method to work, it has to abide by and be more or less homogeneous with the object under investigation. One can only help us if we are experts in the functioning of our own ship. Thus the mathematical method can apply to physics, but it would not be adequate to apply it to theology for example. In other words, interdisciplinarity can only apply to homogeneous disciplines.

110

  More recently, some have introduced the term transdisciplinarity to designate a method which claims to go beyond the barriers of discipline. When neither the oars nor the sails of our boat are of use on the river, we ask people somewhere to throw us some ropes, to pull us from the shore maybe in order to navigate upstream. This method wishes to confront the most diverse disciplines and approach a plural intelligibility of the complexity of human phenomena.  9  One must navigate on the water and move on earth. But both the fact of starting from the existing disciplines within the contemporary culture, and the requirement that the methods used should be dependent on those disciplines, result in that one does not go beyond the culture in which these disciplines have their rationality of being. The sailors in the boat and the hawlers on the embankments both try to have us go up the ever same river.

111

  Transdisciplinarity represents a decisive step towards interculturality, but one is still within disciplines that claim to be universal and belong to a particular culture. One is still within the syndrome of globalization just as the studium generale a few centuries ago, believed in the unique ars magna which claimed to be able to be the foundation of a true universitas, by unifying all knowledge. The challenge of interculturality is more disconcerting and must hence be more humble and not claim to displace transdisciplinarity but situate it and relativize it. The question will then be asked: what is appropriate? Universitas or rather pluriversitas?

»I am not denying that there may be and must be relatively transcultural values, but this is not synonymous with transculturality. In that respect one can rather speak of interculturation or of mutual fecundation.«

112

  In another order of things, one speaks of inculturation. Two great examples: Christianity and modern science with its technology. The initial presupposition is, obviously, that these living great historical facts of mankind are supra-cultural, and that they therefore have the possibility and even the right to inculturate in the different cultures of mankind, without thereby bringing them to lose their identity.

113

  After all that we have said, it should be clear, that, unless one is defending a reductionist conception of culture, no human phenomenon can aspire to be supra-cultural. This does not prevent that there be values or cosmovisions which, born in a particular culture, may be adopted or accepted by others. I am not denying that there may be and must be relatively transcultural values, but this is not synonymous with transculturality. In that respect one can rather speak of interculturation or of mutual fecundation.

114

  I have insisted on the polysemy of words, and I myself have used this word as a possible reinterpretation of inculturation in the present Christian reflection.  10  In our intercultural context, that word could also serve as a symbol of the middle way mentioned above, between cultural solipsism and imperialistic globalization.

115

  Another word, polysemic also, which could help us, would be pluralism. In both cases, it is a matter of not cutting off potential human communication. without having to reduce them to a common denominator of a unique reason.  11 

»Cultures cannot be reduced to contexts which house different texts and give them meaning.«

116

  It may be appropriate on this occasion to express some considerations, which we shall reduce to three, on what could be called a methodic of interculturality. Let us first set the main problems.

117

  The "methodic" belonging to interculturality cannot be one that is followed in interpreting and comparing texts. Nor can it be a hermeneutic of contexts. To interpret a text, one is required to know how to read and to know the pretext which made it possible. The adequate hermeneutics for such an enterprise is one that I have allowed myself to call diatopical. The topoi, or cultural sites, are distinct, and one cannot presuppose a priori that the intentionalities which have made it possible for these different contexts to emerge, are equal. However, with the necessary caveats of a diatopical hermeneutics, contexts can be put into relationship and thus one achieves a certain understanding of these contexts.

118

  However, as previously said, cultures cannot be reduced to contexts which house different texts and give them meaning. Texts can give distinct answers to a problem. It is the contexts that present a problem for us, but it is not legitimate to suppose that the problems of the different cultures are the same (only with different answers). The questions themselves are different.

 

119

  Nevertheless, as we have said, human communication is not impossible because man is much more (not less) than reason and will. The text is run by reason, the context by will. But the human texture is anterior to both the text and the context and it is the fruit neither of reason nor of will. It is given to us, it is a gift, we find it, we acknowledge it, we accept it or rebel against it, but it is there as materia prima, that some will call divine, God or in some other way. It is sufficient for us to acknowledge that the ultimate priority belongs to the given, to the gift, to what we receive or believe that we receive.

 

120

  From that perspective, interculturality is also a given. And while each one of us, from within, is seeking to encompass or to situate other cultures, at least formally, we cannot but acknowledge that the instruments we hold to come closer to other cultures, come to us, forged by the culture in which we are living. There is in man, a feminine dimension which has been too much ignored in the majority of philosophical reflections.


 

121

  a. The first consideration, after that general reflection, is not very popular in the mainstream culture: the field of interculturality does not belong to the will; it escapes it, and is found beyond the will to be able to, to know and to seek.

»The field of interculturality does not belong to the will; it escapes it, and is found beyond the will to be able to, to know and to seek.«

122

  Authentic interculturation is not the inculturation of a culture which considers itself superior, or as having the duty to inculturate, to save, to colonize, to civilize ... It is a spontaneous fruit of the human condition, a natural result of man's life on this planet, a hieros gamos, if we wish to abuse a certain "mythology" in which the Gods pull the strings of the elective affinities and avatars of history. The healthy relations between cultures, those which seek no sort of conquest, belong to the very dynamism of the yin/yang of reality, to the commercium between the divine and the human, as attested by history itself.

 

123

  Hence the necessity of a pure heart: although, by pronouncing the word necessity, we already introduce the great temptation of wanting to direct and even to manipulate it, in order to realize our "good intentions", so often justified under cover of divine Will (interpreted by us, inevitably). Moreover, wanting to possess a pure heart already soils it, to desire nirvana is the greatest obstacle to its attainment, or to think in advance how we are going to witness to the spirit makes us lose not only credibility but the very power (purity, grace) of the spirit.

 

124

  In a word, the methodic of interculturality is not voluntary, but simply natural.


»The methodic of interculturality is not voluntary, but simply natural.«

125

  b. Interculturality also shies away from the hold of the intellect (its apprehension, comprehension, grasp, begreifen); interculturality is not of the domain of reason. Reason can only operate from its own field, and from the particular field of a given space and time. "Sociology of Knowledge" also includes a History and Geography of Knowledge. Our intelligence is imbedded in time and space and cannot function outside of them and outside of very particular spaces and times. It is appropriate to mention here if only parenthetically, that even the cultures that we geographically experience as borderline are not contemporary but diachronical. Each has its own space and lives in its respective time. Neither the clock nor the sun are the masters of human time, any more than Newton or Einstein are those who have discovered space.

 

126

  It follows that reason, which is always our reason, is not the competent judge for the negotium of interculturality. A first consequence of this is that what is called comparative philosophy is a pure impossibility and a leftover from that imperial and colonialistic past that the intercultural discourse obliges us to mention more than once. The basis for this is very simple. For an authentically comparative philosophy, we would need a fulcrum that is neutral, impartial and hence external to philosophy. Now, by definition, such does not exist. Philosophy as we would like to define it, is characterized by the claim of not admitting a superior authority which orders or dominates it. That authority would then be the authentic philosophy. It is significant in this respect to remind oneself that comparative studies have emerged when the goddess Reason reigned in monarchical and despotic fashion in western culture. And nowadays, even if it is no longer absolute queen, it has not yet abdicated its throne of constitutional monarch – thus giving free rein to the struggle, especially political, for power, through the means of each one's instrumental reason.

»The median way opens up when we become aware of the function and power of myth next to the indispensable but not exclusive role of logos in Man. This is what I have called the new innocence


127

  Many years ago I introduced the notion of "imparative philosophy" to situate more adequately our irrepressible aspiration to know the concrete human panorama as it presents itself to our intellect. We cannot compare, but we can and must learn (imparare from high Latin) from the wisdom of other philosophies and cultures, and hence criticize.  12 

128

  In a word, reason does not have the mission of governing (man), but the function of policing. Reason which reigns with much honour in more than one culture cannot autoconsecrate itself the monarch of all cultures. But the alternative is not chaos.


 

129

  c. La alternativa, si así queremos llamar a este esfuerzo por describir la interculturalidad, no debe renunciar ni a la razón ni a la voluntad, sino sólamente a superar toda idolatría. La vía media se abre al darnos cuenta de la función y poder del mito al lado del papel imprescindible pero no exclusivo del logos en el hombre. A esto lo he llamado la nueva inocencia.

130

  From the outset we suggest that the present mainstream culture had set its stakes on logos in all its dimensions, but had omitted to take the mythos into account, reducing the latter to being the Cinderella of the former.

131

  My aim here is not to underline the importance of mythos nor to give it back its role.  13  Let me just state that its function is essential for an intercultural philosophy.



 9. Mythos and logos

 

132

  Let us try to come to a certain conclusion. Cultures are plural. The plurality of cultures in this world does exist, not only in times past but also today. We have already criticized the mainstream culture's facile temptation to phagocytize them all, with the consolation of making them evolve towards a superior culture, without their truly losing anything. This is the modern syndrome of "conversion" according to the Christianity of the second half of this century, a syndrome which manifests itself even more crudely in the contemporary scientific mentality: nothing should be renounced, one must surmount and progress.

 

133

  According to the vocabulary that we are using here, one could say that the plurality of cultures is a fact that is obvious to the logos; their pluralism is a myth, obviously for those who believe in it.

»The dialogue between cultures requires not only mutual respect but also a minimum of mutual understanding, which is impossible without sympathy and love.«

134

  By pluralism, I mean that human attitude which, recognizing the contingency of everything which is human, and that man is not only an object of knowledge but also a knowing subject (knower), acknowledges that systems of thinking and cultures exist which are mutually incompatible and even contradictory, and that nevertheless man does not have the capacity to pass absolute judgement. This does not mean abstaining from critique, nor from the obligation to oppose certain forms of culture which are considered to be noxious or erroneous from another culture's viewpoint.

Raimon Panikkar
was professor of philosophy at the Universities of Madrid, Roma, Varanasi (India), Harvard y Santa Barbara (California). He lives and works now near Barcelona.

135

  But the nature of intercultural philosophy is not so much a question of dealing with borderline cases, or with decisions to be taken regarding aberrations as of seeking paths of interculturality which, without aiming at building a new tower of Babel, do not renounce human communication. This means giving up the spiritual and material bulldozer but not the human word, which is dialogue.

136

  We have already said that interculturality is the locus of dialogue. What is lacking to reach cultural conviviality is dialogical dialogue, whose condition, among others is mutual respect. We say dialogical and not merely dialectical dialogue because the latter already presupposes the primacy of a logos (a very restricted one at that) that many cultures do not accept.

137

  The dialogue between cultures requires not only mutual respect but also a minimum of mutual understanding, which is impossible without sympathy and love.

138

  All this brings us to the re-valorization and maybe the transforming reinterpretation of a notion which, in spite of being very Hellenic, might be able to serve as a springboard to interculturality. We are obviously referring to the myth which is word, narration, which is conscious, which is not incompatible with logos, but which is irreducible to the latter. We cannot embrace reality no matter how proteic our effort: neither the individual alone, nor one culture alone, nor man isolated from the cosmos and the divine.

139

  We cannot on the other hand, as men, renounce aspiring to the whole, we cannot settle for a part of the whole of which we are in some way conscious. And so the binomial mythos-logos seems to open the window for us unto that vision which, unsatisfied with the pars pro toto, becomes aware of that which (without dominating it) laughs, enjoys, lives ... the totum in parte.

140

  Interculturality continues to be a no man's land that we all can enjoy, provided we do no seek to possess it.


Notes


 1   

This text reproduces, with some variations, the inaugural address of the first Congress of Intercultural Philosophy, held in Mexico City in March 1995, address whose title was "Filosofía y cultura: una relación problemática". It was published in: Ilu. Revista de Ciencias de las Religiones 1 (1996), 125-148. 

 2   

The major part of all of the themes considered in this article have already been at least sketched in many of my writings, even if only those are mentioned which can help to justify the brevity of this text. 

 3   

See the pioneering work of R. Fornet Betancourt (1994): Filosofía intercultural. México: Universidad Pontificia de México; and even more recently R. A. Mall (1995): Philosophie im Vergleich der Kulturen. Stuttgart: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. 

 4   

See my study (1993) "Satapathaprajña: Should we speak of Philosophy in Classical India?". In: G. Fløistad (ed.): Contemporary Philosophy, Vol. VII. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 11-67. 

 5   

One can quote as an example the work edited by D. Fraser (1974): African Art as Philosophy. New York: Interbook, who overcomes aesthetic and anthropological "cliches" that are usually applied, in a more or less condescending manner, to African culture (sensual, aesthetic, vivacious, joyous, primogenial – but with little "thinking"). 

 6   

Playing with the possibilities of the German language, I have introduced a few years back, the word "Ummythologisierung". See my article (1963, published in Italian in 1961) "Die Ummythologisierung in der Begegnung des Christentums mit dem Hinduismus". In: Kerygma und Mythos (Hamburg) 6.1, 211-235. 

 7   

See, among many other studies, volume III (1967) of Europaïsche Schlüsselwörter, entitled "Kultur und Zivilisation", edited by Sprachwissenschaftliches Colloquium, Bonn – München: Hueber, and the chapter "Zivilisation, Kultur" of volume VII (1992) of Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe, edited by O. Brunner, W. Conze and R. Koselleck, Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta. 

 8   

See my book (1997) La experiencia filosófica de la India, Madrid: Trotta, which dispenses me from being more explicit. 

 9   

See the interesting book by B. Nicolescu (1996) La transdisciplinarité, Monaco: Rocher, which inaugurates a whole movement, and which has published a collective manifesto (at Arrabida, 1994) on transdisciplinarity. 

 10   

With respect to Christianity which offers us a good example but which I cannot deal with here, see the contributions of the Indian Theological Association, little known outside its milieu (while noting its maturity in the course of time): J. B. Chethimattam (ed.) (1972): Unique and Universal. Fundamental Problems of an Indian Theology. Bangalore: Dharmaran College; J. Pathrapankal (ed.) (1973): Service & Salvation. Bangalore: TPI; M. Amaladoss / T. John / G. Gispert-Sauch (eds.) (1981): Theologizing in India. Bangalore: TPI; C. van Leuwen (ed.) (1984): Searching for an Indian Ecclesiology. Bangalore: ATC; K. Pathil (ed.) (1987): Socio-Cultural Analysis in Theologizing. Bangalore: ITA; K. Pathil (ed.): Religious Pluralism. An Indian Christian Perspective. Delhi: ISPCK. 

 11   

Sorry not to be more explicit on the theme of pluralism inherent to interculturality, that I have treated at length and repeatedly on other occasions. See for example (1995) Invisible Harmony. Minneapolis: Fortress, and J. Prabhu (ed.) (1996): The Intercultural Challenge of R. Panikkar. Maryknoll: Orbis. 

 12   

See my (1980) "Aporias in the Comparative Philosophy of Religion". In: Man and World (The Hague – Boston – London) 13.3-4, 357-383, y "What is Comparative Philosophy Comparing?" In: G. J. Larson / E. Deutsch (eds.) (1988): Interpreting Across Boundaries. New Essays in Comparative Philosophy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 116-136. 

 13   

The bibliography is immense. May I signal, because of their importance, the two volumes (which comprise a vast bibliography) of Ll. Duch (1995): Mite i cultura. Aproximació a la logomítica I. Barcelona: Publicacions de l'Abadia de Montserrat, and (1996): Mite i interpretació. Aproximació a la logomítica II. Barcelona: Publicacions de l'Abadia de Montserrat. 



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